Introduction
In the film The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, the newspaper editor Maxwell Scott said, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” It is widely believed that John Ford, the director of that film, was making a statement about his own career and the western myths he helped create, or at least promulgate.
Ford began his directorial career printing the legend (so to speak), but his later works pulled back the curtain. In this series of movie reviews we will learn how Ford’s films (and the western genre more generally) evolved from printing the legend to printing the fact, effectively inverting Scott’s famous quote.
We begin with The Iron Horse and Stagecoach. Their over romanticized plots and high-octane action continued the mythology already established in dime westerns.
The Old West Mythology
Dime westerns were popular novels between 1860 and 1900, roughly. They often featured manly frontiersmen or cowboys rescuing a damsel in distress from an evil outlaw or savage native. These pulp tales fictionalized real people such as “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Kit Carson, “Billy the Kid” and Jesse James, and exaggerated their exploits to legendary proportions. In the public consciousness there was growing an American mythology set against the awe-inspiring backdrop of the country’s west.
In 1903 the first western film was made. The Great Train Robbery, it was called and featured a band of outlaws doing what the title suggests. Film was well suited to the genre. In a time when travel was long, difficult and expensive, these films treated viewers to never before seen vistas of vast prairies, rolling mountains and craggy plateaus. And it only got better as film technology improved.
The plots were simple. The appeal of these early cowboy movies was in the action sequences. Stuntmen and horsemen performed death-defying feats. Shoot-outs and quickdraw fights with superhuman accuracy. A single man could clear a village of wrongdoers with nothing but a rifle. It was entertaining, to be sure, and in some ways I think it foreshadowed the superhero movies of today.
The Iron Horse (1924) Watch here.
John Ford contributed more to the Western genre than any other single director. His first major film was The Iron Horse. It was Fox Film’s answer to Paramount’s The Covered Wagon (1923), which was an epic journey across the prairie directed by James Cruze. Ford’s goal was to make a similarly epic quest centered on the construction of the transcontinental railroad.
Mr. Brandon aims to take his son, Davy, out west. This separates the boy from his childhood crush, Miriam Marsh. One night in the wild, they are ambushed by a cohort of Cheyennes led by a two-fingered white man. The white man kills Mr. Brandon as young Davy watches in hiding.
Years later, Davy (George O’Brien) is a pony express rider. He is rescued from a native attack by a Union Pacific crew working on the transcontinental railroad. Unbelievably, Miriam’s father is in charge of the work. He is reunited with his former love but is dismayed to find she is engaged to Mr. Jesson (Cyril Chadwick).
Meanwhile, Thomas Marsh (Will Walling) needs to find a shortcut through the Black Hills in order to finish on time and under budget. Davy’s father happened to have found such a shortcut through a steep pass between mountains. Davy and Jesson set out to find it. However, the unscrupulous Bauman (Fred Kohler) wants the track to remain on its current course - through his land, which will increase its value. Under Bauman’s influence, Jesson attempts to kill Davy.
Tensions between Davy and Jesson boil over in a terrifically filmed fight scene. But the dismayed Miriam (played by Madge Bellamy) wants nothing more to do with either man. Much later, this event would influence Davy’s decision to leave the Union Pacific company for the Central Pacific.
The track is laid through Davy’s father’s pass. The infuriated Bauman rounds up a posse of Cheyenne warriors and attacks the work site. During the battle, Davy alone faces down Bauman, and it is revealed he, Bauman, is the two-fingered white man that murdered his father.
The transcontinental railroad is completed. With the driving of the final golden spike, the country is united. Miriam and Davy are also finally united in engagement.
This lengthy summary of The Iron Horse barely touches the surprising complexity of Ford’s silent movie. The plot isn’t exactly groundbreaking, to be sure, but it is an interesting story if told in a roundabout way. More importantly, it has a lot of emotion. It has a lot of humanity. Ford tells the historical story through the lens of the personal stories of his characters.
One technique Ford employed was to incorporate background and foreground action into single shots. The foreground depicts the personal element while the background depicts the historical element, that is the railroad’s construction. In one poignant scene, we see a pair of men burying a body while the widow weeps. The men decide he is deep enough and march away with shovels slung over their shoulders. The widow is left behind. She collapses to the ground in her grief. All the while, work on the rail can be seen continuing in the background. Life on the line goes on.
Another great example of creative cinematography: to get a fantastic shot for the big battle, Ford and his cinematographer, George Schneiderman, had the crew pull up four rail ties and dig a hole. The pair then climbed inside and shot the underside of the train as it roared by. They could have been killed, but it made for a great sequence.
The major theme of The Iron Horse is unification. The country is literally unified by the completion of the rail. It is also metaphorically unified by the hard labor and friendships forged while working the line. Ford has a diverse group of Americans - Irish, Italians, Chinese and Pawnees - working together, sometimes arguing, but ultimately getting the job done. The women also help, notably in the climactic battle where they are seen loading rifles and taking shots.
Movie studios were not above telling lies to drum up publicity. That would be the case for The Iron Horse. While an opening title card states the film is accurate in its portrayal of historical details, it lies in another title card that claims the trains used in the final scene are the same ones at the real life joining of the railroad. That is not true. The original trains were scrapped in 1910.
But there were accurate moments, too. The Cheyennes were against the building of the railroad because it cut the grazing lands of the buffalo in half. The buffalo refused to cross the tracks. So, the Cheyennes conducted small raids against the workers. Although nothing came close to the epic battle we see in the movie. Pawnees were enemies with the Cheyennes. They did in fact work on the transcontinental railroad as scouts and guards. They got weapons and military training to be used against the Cheyennes.
Stagecoach (1939) Watch here.
“Nine disparate travelers are thrust together on a stagecoach destined for Apache territory...and movie immortality,” says the back cover of my DVD. It is true: Stagecoach is a cinema legend. The Iron Horse launched Ford’s career. Stagecoach rocketed it to the stars. But in some ways, it was a step backward.
Nine travelers are headed for Lordsburg, New Mexico.
Dallas (played by Claire Trevor) is a prostitute driven out of town by the “Law and Order League.” Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell) is an alcoholic doctor whose intoxication has also run him afoul of the league.
Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt) is a proper lady trying to reach her cavalry officer husband before her baby is due. Reports of Apache attacks along the route worries Lucy, so a gambler and southern gentleman named Hatfield (John Carradine) offers to accompany her.
Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill) is a banker who has embezzled money. Sam Peacock (Donald Meek) is a traveling whiskey salesman whose samples are thoroughly tested by the doctor.
The stage driver, Buck, is played by Andy Devine. He needs a man to ride shotgun before taking the stage out. Marshal Curly Wilcox (George Bancroft) offers to fill that role. He is looking for an escaped convict named Ringo Kid, and believes Ringo will turn up in Lordsburg. In fact, Ringo’s horse has gone lame and the stage picks him up in the desert.
Ringo Kid is played by the Duke, also known as John Wayne. He seeks revenge on the Plummers for the murder of his kid brother and father.
The stage and its passengers undergo a number of hardships, culminating in a chase scene with the Apaches and a gun fight with the Plummers.
This is a great film, and there are a number of reasons why. First, Ford again tells a historical story through a personal lens. That is, the (mostly) real life struggles and dangers of the American “wild west” told via a group of strangers each with their own agenda or need. The best example of this is the evolving relationship between Lucy and Dallas.
Lucy, ever the proper lady, only reluctantly shares the stage with prostitute Dallas. Later, she will not eat with her. Then Lucy goes into labor. Dallas takes care of the baby, even shields it during the Apache attack. And therefore by the end Lucy has come to respect Dallas.
Each of the nine grow in relation to themselves and to each other. Ringo accepts Dallas, past and all; the two run away together. Doc Boone has his moment when he must sober up to deliver Lucy’s baby. Hatfield sacrifices himself. The banker is brought to justice.
Next, there is the acting. Thomas Mitchell won an Oscar for his role. The Duke is an absolute joy to watch. The look on his face as he remembers the murder of his brother is chilling. His very presence commands the screen. Stagecoach was John Wayne’s first major role. It launched his career.
Stagecoach would also set the gold standard for all future westerns. That has its upsides and its downsides.
In the chase scene that climaxes the film, John Ford and his cinematographer, Bert Glennon, capture some amazing footage. Similar to The Iron Horse, we see shots from under the racing coach and pursuing horses. There are some coach-mounted camera shots that are reminiscent of car chases in later films.
Stuntman Yakima Canutt famously leaps from horse to horse. In one sequence, he plays an Apache trying to commandeer the lead stage horse. Ringo shoots him. He falls between the horse hooves galloping at 40 miles per hour and then slides under the stage missing it by a mere 12 inches! Supposedly, Canutt immediately asked Ford if he got the shot. Ford replied, if he didn’t there was no way he’d shoot it again.
All this is fine and entertaining. But as far as setting the gold standard for westerns goes, it turned the enterprise into a contest. Who can shoot more bullets? Kill more bad guys? Perform the most dangerous stunt?
In the final showdown with the Plummers, Ringo takes out three men by himself with a lever action rifle. It is implausible - not impossible, to be sure, but it requires a major leap of faith. This is the sort of nonsense we will see in Clint Eastwood and other Spaghetti Westerns - not to mention every action flick.
Stagecoach is a step backwards from The Iron Horse because the latter was a richer story that was all about the characters and the history. The former had these elements, too, but they were overshadowed by the action, which was more overblown than The Iron Horse.
Conclusion for the “Old West”
Now that we have looked at these two films, what can we conclude about John Ford’s early work?
The Iron Horse was a human story set against the construction of the transcontinental railroad. It told a winding tale of love, revenge and wilderness. Davy was the brawny frontiersman. Miriam didn’t need much rescuing, but the circumstances that kept her from Davy and drove her into the arms of the scoundrel, Jesson, are the plot elements of the true romantic story.
Stagecoach was very much the same, but cranked up the action to an 11. The stunts were spectacular and the crew, especially Canutt, deserve recognition. Nevertheless, everything else takes a back seat including the romanticized elements of the story.
Both these films - more so Stagecoach which revived the dying genre - became the yardstick by which every other western measured itself. In that way, John Ford added to and promulgated the “old west” mythology.